5: Hillbilly (R9, No 8): Sat parked in Northern Derby last start and before that had two big seconds off handicaps. Value each way option.
If Alexandra Park races true to recent form for tonight’s $200,000 Magness Benrow Sires’ Stakes, there may be fewer winning chances in the Group 1 field than it appears as first glance.
Because while the race is the strongest of the 3-year-old pacing fillies season so far, the girls covering the least ground should hold a huge advantage.
Tonight’s meeting caps a golden six weeks for northern harness racing but the most obvious trend has been the biggest race winners almost always coming from on the marker pegs.
It was the case in all five Group 1 races here two weeks ago and two of the three held at Alexandra Park last week.
It was also the case when Arcee Phoenix won the $600,000 TAB Trot at Cambridge last month, with the most jarring exception to the marker-pegs domination being Leap To Fame in the $1 million Race by Betcha, but is an exception to a lot of rules.
The reasons for the popular pegs are well known: the times being recorded these days are so fast, horses coming wide often face having to break national records just to keep up.
That trend looks set to continue in tonight’s 2200m mobile Sires’ Stakes and if it does, it gives an enormous advantage to Beside Me (Race 8, No 3) and most likely General Jen (No 2).
Beside Me looks the likely leader and driver Carter Dalgety says if he gets there, he won’t be handing the lead away.
“She got a little too excited for her own good in the Oaks last start but that was 2700m, whereas being 2200m this week, I can let her roll more,” says Dalgety.
Beside Me was beaten in that Oaks by Arafura, who is in tonight’s race but faces a second-line draw so it could be her stablemate General Jen who emerges as the main danger to the favourite.
General Jen was allowed to miss the earlier northern 3-year-old features by co-trainer Hayden Cullen and she looked a fresh and happy horse when she bolted away with her Alexandra Park debut against older pacers last Friday.
If she can use her gate speed to cross to the markers and trail Beside Me, she could try the same sit-and-snipe tactics Arafura did two weeks ago.
“I have no doubts Arafura is the best of our fillies but she may not be the best chance this week,” says Cullen.
“I can see General Jen getting the better run, hopefully on the back of Beside Me, and she really impressed me how she won up here last Friday.
“Arafura is tougher but if she has to race in the running line, it becomes a lot harder for her.”
One horse who could be on the markers but not the best version of them is Southland filly Captains Mistress.
She looks the real deal but faces being three or even four deep on the markers and if so, could need an intense war up front to open gaps for her to chase down tired legs later.
Her trainer-driver Nathan Williamson also brings his one-start, one-win juvenile trotter Duchess Maria (R4, No 2) north for the $50,000 IRT Young Gun Final in which she will have to handle the right-handed track to down Redpark Warrior.
Tonight’s other major trot, the $120,000 IRT Trotters Championship, should probably see Meant To Be continued on his winning march but the reduction in distance from 2700m last start to 2200m mobile tonight gives him less time to overcome his unruly start point.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald‘s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.
